youbloom@Dublin 2013 Speakers

Keynote Speaker

Dave Robinson (Stiff and Island Records)

Dave provides an irreverent look at the music industry from past to present and why the industry’s current state of flux should be seen as an opportunity rather than a threat. Not to be missed!

About the Speaker

With 40+years at the sharp end of the music industry, Dave Robinson has seen it all. Having briefly managed Jimi Hendrix, Dave went onto co-found Stiff Records (Nick Lowe, The Damned, Motorhead, Elvis Costello, Madness, Lene Lovich, The Pogues and many more) and eventually head up Island Records where he oversaw the careers of U2, Robert Palmer, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, working with legendary producer Trevor Horn. He has also worked with US artists Johnny Cash, the Black Crowes, Slayer and the Jayhawks, and at Island was instrumental in the compilation and marketing of Bob Marley’s 36million selling LEGEND Album. Dave later went on to run the famous Blue Note Club and Acid Jazz Label in London, helping to launch the Acid House and the Drum & Bass movements.

2013 Speakers

Darryl Ballantyne – Lyricfind, Canada

Darryl is CEO of LyricFind.com, the largest legal, licensed lyric database in the world. Officially launched in 2004, the company has gone on to pioneer the licensed digital lyrics space, successfully negotiating the first-ever mass lyrics licensing deal with EMI Publishing in 2005.

Vince Bannon – Getty Images, USA

Vince heads up Entertainment Partnerships and Development at Getty Images. Prior to Getty, Vince held various A&R and marketing roles within the music and entertainment industry. He started his own concert company while at college in Detroit and went onto successfully host gigs by Nirvana, The Police, Pearl Jam, Nine Inch Nails among others.

Mick Birmingham – Gigstarter, New Zeland

Mick recently started Gigstarter a market research tool, used before anything is set in stone to try find out where demand is before you route your band tour. Previously he worked as a promoter with a weekly electronic night promoting shows for The Wailers, Japanese Popstars, Steve Aoki, Hot Chip (DJ set), The Villians, Breakbot, Autokratz, Le Galaxie, Fight Like Apes, Jape and Fakeblood. Mick was also the entertainment officer in Trinity, and promoter the 2010 Trinity Ball, with Dizzie Rascal headlining.

Elvera Butler – Reekus Records, Dublin, Ireland

Elvera Butler founded Reekus Records in 1981, while Ents Officer at UCC as a vehicle for alternative Irish music, launching the careers of bands such as Microdisney, The Blades, Aslan and Sweet Jane. Throughout her career in the music industry she has been fiercely passionate about nurturing and developing the artists on the label, and more recently has been expanding the publishing arm of Reekus, securing synchs in top international TV shows such as Grey’s Anatomy, The Good Wife, Ugly Betty, American Idol and Skins. In Ireland music by Reekus artists has been used frequently in shows such as RAW and Kitchen Hero.

Manage Straywave’s assets – digital output, content development and branded entertainment divisions. Oversaw the development of Fade St., a groundbreaking multi-platform non-scripted youth series which was Irish national broadcaster RTE’s first cross platform hit. Delivered Irish broadcasting’s first product placement funded success story Celebrity Salon for TV3. Served as Irish Exec Producer of MTV’s broadcast of Kings Of Leon live in Slane Castle Exec. Produced ‘Being Sam Holden’ for Setanta Sports Global which had ground-breaking seed funding from 888 Poker.com. Conceived and developed Style Nation’s Beauty Spot on-line show and national tour for Diageo. Conceived and developed the sold out Futurproof conference series on Social Media, Content and Mobile.

Adrian Crowley – Songwriter, Ireland

Autumn 2012 saw the worldwide release of Irish songwriter Adrian Crowley’s sixth album, I See Three Birds Flying, a follow up to 2009’s Season of the Sparks which won the prestigious Choice Music Prize for Irish album of the year. I See Three Birds Flying was also nominated for the Meteor Choice Music Prize. his third nomination for the annual, highly prestigious award. Since recording with Steve Albini in 2001, the Malta born/ Galway raised musician released three albums on the New York label Ba Da Bing! He consequently toured extensively in the USA receiving attention from the likes of The New Yorker, Alternative Press and most notably in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine when Ryan Adams named Crowley as one of his favourite underground songwriters around at the time.

Nigel Grainge – Ensign Records, UK

Nigel started life as an A&R exec for Phonogram where he went on to sign Thin Lizzy, 10cc and The Steve Miller Band. He later founded Ensign Records and went on to achieve success with The Boomtown Rats, Eddy Grant and Sinead O’Connor. He is an A&R adviser to youbloom.

John Hearns – SMS Consultants, Ireland

John is the principal of SMS Consultants which provides sales, marketing and commercial management services to emerging and scaling companies predominantly in the mobile technology space. John has a particular interest in the emerging music tech sector and consults to a number of companies in both Ireland and the U.K. in this space covering areas such as ticketless solutions, mobile/cashless payments, music/entertainment content capture and delivery, and fan engagement. John is a graduate of the University of Limerick as well as an elected fellow of the Sales Institute of Ireland and has held senior commercial roles in several multinationals including Vodafone Plc, Anheuser-Busch InBev and Aryzta Plc.

Rupert Hine – BMG Chrysalis, UK

Rupert is an English songwriter and record producer having produced albums for artists including Tina Turner, Howard Jones, Bob Geldof, Thompson Twins, Stevie Nicks, Underworld and Rush among others. He is currently a consultant with BMG and A&R adviser to youbloom.

Jim Hodson – IQusic, New Haven CT, USA

Jim has spent his career at the intersection of ideas, technology, and business. From aerospace to flying reindeer, he has led and built teams to develop technology, financial models, and IP for a variety of cross industry business ventures. He is currently the founder of IQusic and has 4 patents and 2 pending.

Larry Hogan – Cornernote Studio, Dalkey, co Dublin

Larry Hogan is a music industry professional with more that 25 years experience. In that time he has toured extensively as a solo and session musician playing and recording with such bands as The band, George Hamilton the third and Kila. He is currently composing and producing music for television, video games and various artists and runs the Cornernote studio in Dalkey, co Dublin . Larry also lectures at Windmill Lane, Pulse College in sound design and game audio.

Gaston Irigoyen – Guidecentral, Dublin, Ireland

Gaston Irigoyen is CEO & Co-Founder of Guidecentral, a mobile and web app that helps makers share and discover DIY project and tutorials on topics they love. He previously worked at YouTube as Manager of Content Partnerships, helping European content creators and distributors build scalable businesses on YouTube. Before that, Gaston was an Agency Relationship Manager in Google Argentina and managed the relationship with top digital agencies throughout Latin America. He also developed two successful iPhone applications and sold one to KIA Motors.

Carol Keogh – Songwriter with The City Fathers, Ireland

Carol Keogh has written and performed with a variety of bands since 1995. More recently she has blossomed as a solo songwriter with The City Fathers. In 2012 recording funds were raised through a successful crowdsourcing campaign on the Irish service FundIt.ie. Her diverse career stretches back to The Plague Monkeys, Ken McHugh’s Autamata project and the follow-up album ‘Short Stories’, including the song of a Dublin Christmas ‘Liberty Bell’, subsequently covered by the Dublin Gospel Choir. She also worked with The Tycho Brahe on the ‘This Is’ and ‘Love Life’ albums.

Conor Lynch – SocialMedia.ie, Ireland

Conor Lynch is the founder and CEO of SocialMedia.ie and has over 14 years online marketing experience gained while working in Asia Pacific, US, UK and Ireland with a wide range of companies including start-ups, SMEs and global brands. Conor has an award winning pedigree and has worked in senior roles for several of Ireland’s top digital marketing agencies, as well as Ireland’s first Internet-only bank, RaboDirect. Conor is a graduate of marketing from DIT, TCD and from the UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School and now lectures in NUI Maynooth.

Lisa McLaughlin – Songwriter, Performer from Tyrone, in the North of Ireland

Gorgeous chords, poignant lyrics, clever quirks and the power of raw emotion. Lisa McLaughlin holds the stage like no other. This up and coming artist has shared the stage with many acts from the U.S.A, Canada, UK, Ireland. From the Wunderland blog, “Lisa Mc Laughlin, got people up off the floor and onto their feet with an energetic performance of shimmering acoustic and electric guitars with a voice reminiscent of Sinead O’ Connor in her prime.”

Frank Murray – Hill16 Management, Dublin, London, and Austin

Frank Murray is CEO of Hill16 Management. He has managed The Pogues, Kirsty MacColl The Frames,The MightyStef and The Lost Brothers.He has been touring with bands since the late sixties and has tour managed Thin Lizzy, Elton John ,Joe Strummer,The Specials and many many more.

Mark Rafferty – LinkedFinance.com / Linked P2P Ltd., Ireland

Marc Rafferty is and has been a socially conscious serial entrepreneur for the last 15 years in Ireland, the USA and Holland. He has managed bands, promoted events, run venues and advised artists on how best to promote and finance themselves for many years. Marc currently runs a company www.linkedfinance.com, Irelands ‘crowd sourcing’ and ‘crowd funding’ platform for small and medium sized businesses. The principles of which apply equally to those in the creative space. An amateur guitar, bass player and drummer, Marc believes in the Faithless principal of, YOU DONT NEED EYES TO SEE, YOU NEED VISION.

Donal Scannell – Gigstarter, Ireland

Donal co-founded Gigstarter as a crowdfunding tool for planning and funding tours. Described as the Kickstarter for gigs, the web tool is a way for concerts to be crowd funded by fans. Donal is also creative director at production company Scanarama.

Tom Silverman – New Music Seminar, USA

Tom founded the Tommy Boy music label (De La Soul, Queen Latifah, Naughty by Nature) in 1981. He is also a co-founder of the New Music Seminar, a New York based music festival and conference that was re-launched in 2009. Tom has also served as vice president of Warner Bros. Records and was a recipient of the NARAS Heroes Award in 2000.

Ralph Simon – Mobile Entertainment Forum, USA

Ralph is regarded as a founder of the mobile entertainment industry, starting the first ring tone company Yourmobile/Moviso in the US, EU, UK, Australia and Africa in 1997. Prior to Yourmobile, he was co-founder of the Zomba Group of music companies (now part of Sony).

Robert Singerman – Brasil Music Exchange/88tc88/CMJ, USA

Robert has worked in the music business for >35 years and has represented at various times REM, Gypsy Kings, James Brown, Suzanne Vega among others. He has also served as a director of the French music Export Office in the US, is currently a director of Brasil Music Exchange North America and a partner at 88tc88.com.

Alex Von Soos – Garnish School of Sound, UK

Alex is a London-based songwriter and producer. He is a classically trained pianist and has spent years analysing the theory behind hit songs. He has scored a #1 UK hit with All Saints (Black Coffee) and has worked with many other artists worldwide, selling 5 million records in the process. He is currently a tutor at the Garnish School of Sound, and a youbloom Music Awards judge.